Joe Biden: Landlord to the Secret Service?

posted at 11:21 am on August 1, 2011 by Jazz Shaw

The office of Vice President of the United States has long been seen as something of a figurehead position, if not the butt of jokes. It is frequently related to the need to attend weddings and funerals, when it’s not being compared to a bucket of warm spit. Small wonder, then, if the holders of this esteemed position look for other ways to occupy their time. In the case of Joe Biden, he seems to be taking an interest in being a landlord. Nothing wrong with that! But it is rather curious that he’s renting out some of his property to the Secret Service, with the bill being footed by the taxpayers.

The U.S. Secret Service does more than protect Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. — the agency also pays him rent.

Since April, Mr. Biden has collected more than $13,000 from the agency charged with protecting him and his family for use of a rental cottage adjacent to the waterfront home he owns in a Wilmington, Del., suburb.

Mr. Biden, listed not as vice president in federal purchasing documents but as a “vendor,” is eligible for up to $66,000 by the time the government contract expires in the fall of 2013, the records show.

To be clear, here, there is no suggestion being made that the Vice President is engaged in anything illegal. It’s his property and he has the right to rent it out. (And, in fact, was doing so to a private citizen up until last winter. Prior to that his mother lived in the cottage up until her death.) The failure here is just in the optics.

Logistically it makes perfect sense to have the agents as close as possible to Biden and his family for security purposes. In fact, it was the Secret Service who approached Biden this year to ask about renting the property when it became available. (Though, to be fair, he did offer it to them first a year earlier, but they declined at that time.) It is also apparently a normal expenditure for the Secret Service to rent property to be used by their agents.

The story just gets a bit strange when the landlord is also the protected subject and a public servant is collecting rent being funded by the taxpayers. Should Biden have just offered to let them stay there for free? It might have been smart politics, but poor business. Again… it’s his rental property and there’s nothing preventing him from drawing some income on it.

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Questions:
1. Did Biden charge his mother rent?
2. If Biden is a public servant, wouldn’t it stand to reason, especially in a time of financial govt crisis, that he be a generous servant & provide the lodgings for his paid security force for free, since it is so convenient?
I would think such a dedicated servant, who clearly lives a good living off of those he so proudly serves, would leap at the chance to be charitable.
3. Why is every public servant seemingly involved in such things?

Norquist, who heads the powerful anti-tax group Americans for Tax Reform, tells Newsmax that congressional members who signed his group’s “pledge” promising never to vote for a tax increase can vote for this deal.

Should Biden have just offered to let them stay there for free? It might have been smart politics, but poor business. Again… it’s his rental property and there’s nothing preventing him from drawing some income on it.

He’s got more money than he needs and the Republicans won’t raise his taxes, so the least he can do is let the Secret Service protect him for no charge.

We can just be glad he didn’t set the rate for $13,000/month. Since his mother lived in it up till last year, all he had to do was rent to a supporter for a high rate to establish the baseline, then turn around and rent it to the SS at the “established” rate. Smart bidness, dumb optics, but that’s DC for us.

When I worked at the White House – the Secret Service rented a very large home adjacent to President George H.W. Bush’s holiday home in Kennibunkport, MN.

There had been a family living it. Secret Service said “name your price”. I don’t remember how much it was – but it was outrageous. The deal also requred that the owners give Secret Service permission to “modify” the house to suit their needs – however, the agreement also included a statement that Secret Service would REVERSE the modifications free of charge and the owners had the option to KEEP any modification the Secret Service performed on the structural aspects of the house.

This is the way the White House works sportsfans – no regard for money – and that was a REPUBLICAN administration. Yet – heh … we can’t seem to cut any waste out of this budget.

I don’t see a problem with this. It’s his property to rent or not rent as he sees fit. The Secret Service would need to stay somewhere, and there’s no reason to expect the VP to forgo income from a property he owns and must maintain.

I’m curious, is the Secret Service allowed to accept free lodging as a gift? That’d be a conflict of interest under some circumstances.

Guys, this is small potatoes. $66k for 3 years of occupancy (1/2011 to 12/2013) works out to $1833.33 per month. My guess is Biden is probably just getting reimbursed for property taxes, insurance, and whatever mortgage may be on the property. And, Biden has to pay taxes on that rental income, so Uncle Sam at least recoups some of the money that way.

Biden definitely has his ethics problems (being that he’s a serial plagiarist), but he’s never been accused of financial impropriety and I see no evidence of it here.

When Ford built his place in Beaver Creek, CO (Vail Valley), he built a guesthouse for the Service at HIS expense. Also, their slopeside “on-duty” shack and another facility for vehicles. He wasn’t recompensed for any rents.

Ford also picked up the tab for a lot of services that the agents used, from lift tickets to dinners, to nights out for the agent’s & families.

It would have been beyond the Ford’s comprehension to ask for reimbursements or rents for this. The Ford’s had a great respect for the agents and Service; this bunch . . . not so much.

Odds are Biden is in violation of the suburb’s zoning ordinances in running a boarding house. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s also violating an ordinance on the number of unrelated people living there.

There’s a chance, it’s arguable, that it is also violating an ordinance on using residential commercial property by a business entity for business purposes.

I have little doubt he went to the local planning commission to get variances for this use. Laws are for little people.

As best I recall, the Secret Service had to do something similar at President George W. Bush’s ranch in Texas. It was so remote that there was nothing else. That’s why Sheehan and her smelly posse were camping on a gravel road and dumping in the ditch.

I don’t recall the details, whether they paid something to the President, or perhaps they even had to construct it. Anyone recall?

The Hay Barn is located on a hill above the Ranch adobe and adjacent to the Secret Service Building. This barn housed ranch equipment and feed for the ranch livestock. During the presidential years, Ronald Reagan designated the barn for use by the Secret Service and their federally-owned horses. The hay stored there was separated into federal feed storage and Reagan feed storage. Reagan was always careful to personally pay for the feeding and upkeep of his own horses.

So let’s get this straight. We are paying twice for Biden’s security detail? The agents get perdiem while the gobermint pays Biden for use of space. I wish they would just walk off the job and let Biden fend for himself.

There are other beefs that are legit. For once this deal is completely transparent, and the fee is reasonable.
I think the weird part is that it actually appears to be on the up and up. Maybe we should investigate that?

I’d rather the SS had rented a house from an owner down the road or some real estate investor who had a nearby property available, just to help out the local economy but, if in their judgement this location and property was better for them in the carrying out of their primary mission, the protection of Bite Me, then I say no harm, no foul.

It’s kind of a neutral area for me–it would look better if he wasn’t charging them or was charging a reduced rate, but since it’s not illegal I’m not going to raise a stink. However…

If it were VP Palin, no one here would have an issue with it…

KeepOhioRed on August 1, 2011 at 11:37 AM

Nossir. The issue is not whether *we* would have any problems with it. You know that if the VP’s first name was Sarah and the last name was Palin, the lame stream media and the entire liberal left would be having a freaking cow about it and would be demanding she step down immediately for such a breach. Even if it was legal and she had the blessings of the Dali Lama himself. (I’d say the Pope but he doesn’t hold much water with the left.)

Probably not a big deal, but oh yeah, if Palin or Cheney did it we’d never hear the end of it. Palin couldn’t even go out of state or receive a flower bouquet without incurring someone’s wrath.

I’ve spent time near Cheney’s house in Wyoming, so I know the USSS set-up he had there. He doesn’t have a cottage to rent, and IIRC there was a trailer or portable building set up nearby. They also built two tiny guardshacks on the golf course, and when the VP was in residence, they used an RV to set up a checkpoint on his street. Also, when he was there, many of the neighborhood condos and offices were rented out to USSS.

So I expect the USSS was pang for all of that, but the Cheneys weren’t getting rent $ from them, as far as I could tell.

I don’t care for Biden, but I am going to say non-story on this. As a landlord he needs to cover his interests and a contractual agreement will stipulate the terms. Having them stay free would have made it hard to contract terms. But, to avoid the appearance of conflict of interest he should have refused their request.

One should look at the article’s numbers. It seems a bit incongruous that, as the President he serves decries “corporate jets” and declares his own taxes too low because he personally makes more money than he needs, Biden squeezed the taxpayers for $11,000 worth of rent last year. According to the IRS, without that income he still would have made $368,000. To look at it from the left’s own beloved class warfare perspective, I daresay Biden is rich and does not “need” that extra income, no?

This is for secret service protection at his Delaware residence…..doesn’t the nation already provide him a residence in DC?

They do but I dont think he ever moved into that residence.

Rich on August 1, 2011 at 12:16 PM

Not true. The Bidens inhabit the Naval National Observatory, the official Washington DC Vice Presidential residence. The facility is staffed with both active duty Naval personnel and civilians performing the usual variety of servants’ duties, including cooking, cleaning, and winding the big atomic clock. I know nothing about their travel habits, so I couldn’t say how much time they spend in the Delaware residence.